
Fear, Anger and Politics
More than a decade after the September 11 attacks, an Al Jazeera two-part film follows Muslim Americans caught up in the anti-terrorism crackdown that followed, letting them describe the surveillance, detentions, and suspicion they say reshaped their lives. The film draws on research begun in July 2010, when its makers found Muslim American communities already preparing to mark the attacks' tenth anniversary through books, theater, reports, and public demonstrations recounting what the "war on terror" had cost them at home. It also brings in "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," a Center for American Progress report tracing how a small group of self-described experts, backed by a network of donors, worked to spread fear of Muslims in the US. Interviews with those directly affected sit alongside this paper trail, connecting personal injustice to an organized campaign. The two parts together trace a straight line from the crackdown's early years to the entrenched Islamophobia the film argues followed from it.